In a recent survey of young people, a large and significant amount confessed they lied on a regular basis even though they considered themselve to be good and ethical people.
I doubt there would be any argument that politicians lie on a regular basis.
But what we refuse to condemn is the institution of government lying to the people it is alleged to represent on a regular basis. And if we ever want to get control of our government, this is the most important change that we must demand from the new Administration and Congress. No more lies!
It’s nothing new. Lying by our government has been going on for at least 70 years that we can document, probably longer. It’s commonplace and that is disgraceful.
Recent lies include the deliberate misinformation about Iraq. Over 4000 brave Americans have died because of that lie and thousands of others have had their lives forever altered.
It is NOT acceptable.
Other lies include Roswell, JFK and marijuana. In fact the government’s deliberate propagand campaign about marijuana has cost the freedom hundreds of thousands of people at a huge price tag just so a handful of men in the 30’s could go from hunting down bootleggers to hunting down mexican immigrants who were falsely accused of introducing the demon weed to the youth of our country. This was the first time that our government deliberately engaged in a mass disinformation and propaganda campaign using the media to falsely disperse inaccurate information much like other tyrants did during their prospective reigns.
President’s keep promising to tell us the truth about Roswell and what the government knows about Extraterrestrials. Theorectically, back in the 40’s, 50’s, maybe even the 60’s, the theory was the people of the world could not handle the truth. After almost half a century of science fiction, that is definitely not the case. And yet, once in office, President Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, have all caved to the institution of govt lies. Perhaps they are kept out of the loop due to a need to know basis. Perhaps, there are just a handful of people who know the entire story. If so, how can we say we live in an open society or a free country when clearly We do not.
And the execution of JFK has been dissected publicly repeatedly. Very few people still believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunmen in the assasination of President Kennedy. By the time, all the facts become available about the coup detente that was pulled off in the way of this execution, all accountable parties will be long dead and there will be nothing that can be done, except for a few very old people to say…”See we told you so!”
Today there are people who do not believe the gov’t’s findings about recent events. You can’t blame them when we have documented evidence that the outgoing POTUS, GW Bush, told gov’t employees to bring him whatever it took to justify invading another country. With a man like that for a leader, no wonder its citizens question the gov’ts account of historical events. We even have gov’t officials rewriting history as foreseen by George Orwell when he worte 1984 over half a century ago. And what about fudging the economic numbers? Is that just a little white lie when they put out false or incomplete information initially only to quietly correct it months later?
it is never too late to tell the truth. For instance, it took almost 40 years for the gov’t to tell the truth about using African American men for an experiment for Venereal Disease. The govt did not come crumbling down when the truth was revealed. In fact, those that suffered at the hands of a lying and manipulate govt, were vindicated. In a way, this is a manner of freedom for the victims of that deliberate lie. And I’m quite sure there are numerous other examples.
If we cannot trust our government as an institution to be publicly honest and frank with its people, then we are no better than the former Soviet Union in which we engaged in a cold war with for almost half a century. If we cannot believe what our government as an institution tell us, then our governmnet is not for the people and must be changed as instructed by the Declaration of Independence.
President Elect Obama has promised us change. Perhaps that change is not in the faces that govern but in the manner of governing. We need a leader who will step up to the plate and do something about the institution of lying by government. We need a president that will step up and say……we were wrong when we did or said this. We need a leader who will stand up and say that the people of the world have a need to know the truth. And the only question that remains, is POTUS Obama that man and if not when or if will we EVER have a leader that will stop the institution of lying by our government. If we cannot believe and trust our gov’t, then we are certainly not the great country that we profess to be. If our government cannot be honest with its citizens then it is not better than the communist or fascist systems that we have warred against for decades.
The institution of gov’t must stop lying. And the only way it will stop is if we demand it again and again for as long as it takes.
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